ISRAEL has staged its biggest invasion of Arab-controlled territory for 20 years in violent attacks that left at least 41 dead.

Scores of tanks and 20,000 troops poured into Palestinian-run cities and refugee camps in the most-aggressive display of Israeli military might since its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
World leaders made desperate appeals to Israel to rein back its forces. ...

IN a grim warning, Palestinian militia strung up the blood-streaked body of a suspected collaborator with Israel in a central city square yesterday morning.

The bullet-riddled body of Raed Naem Odeh was left swinging by the ankles in a traffic circle in the centre of Ramallah. The al-Aqsa Brigades, linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, took responsibility for the killing.
The body hung bare-chested and clad only in jeans and sneakers. Bullet holes were clearly visible. In the background was a large billboard of a scowling, finger-wagging Arafat. Palestinians said Mr Odeh was suspected of helping Israeli forces kill a suspected militant.

It was the first such public display of the body of a suspected collaborator during 17 months of Palestinian-Israeli fighting.

IN its biggest military operation since the 1982 Lebanon war, Israel sent scores of tanks and 20,000 troops into the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday in a high-stakes effort to find terrorists in the heart of Palestinian rule.

Palestinians said at least 30 people were killed in clashes in Ramallah, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has his headquarters, and the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Jebaliya.
Lieutenant-General Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli army chief of staff, told a parliamentary committee yesterday that over the past two weeks Israeli soldiers had killed more than 200 members of Tanzim, the militant arm of Mr Arafat's Fatah organisation.

Israeli security forces had also rounded up 2500 Palestinians for interrogation.

The attacks came on the eve of the arrival of US envoy General Anthony Zinni, who has been dispatched to the region by President George W. Bush in a bid to find a solution to the crisis.

Israeli Colonel Gal Hirsh, operations chief for the central command, said the objective was "to put a wall between Israel and terror".

"In the last few years we were losing many, many casualties," he said. "We could not stand it any more and we decided to act."

The effort has yielded hundreds of rifles, machine guns and revolvers as well as dozens of wanted militants. But there is no evidence that terrorist attacks are slowing.

While the Ramallah raid was under way yesterday, six Israelis were shot dead near the Lebanon border by five Palestinian gunmen, who witnesses said were dressed as Israeli soldiers.

Security forces killed two gunmen and were searching for the others. A seventh Israeli was killed in a shooting in the West Bank.

Israel also mobilised an additional 1000 reservists to protect Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli tanks and helicopters assaulted Jebaliya, the largest camp in the Palestinian territories, with 100,000 residents. Their fire killed at least 18 people, Palestinians said, and wounded 75.

Of those arrested since Sunday in Palestinian refugee camps and cities, "tens" were hard-core terrorists, Colonel Hirsh said.

For the first time, the military detailed what troops had found during their drive into Palestinian camps, which Colonel Hirsh described as a "terror infrastructure".

But sources indicated yesterday that fighting was raging around the camps as many hardline paramilitary guerillas fought back.